Analysis and comment from Memphis, Tennessee, on media, politics, culture, science, my life and anything else that catches my eye.

Wednesday, October 15, 2003

Naifeh News

Seems that State House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh is fighting prostate cancer. While he may be a political thug of the ugliest and most naked kind, he's also a human being and I wish him well in this fight.

But the interesting thing in the article reporting this, by Richard Locker, the last of the old CA's troika of poisonous partisans, is this passage:

Naifeh is not expected to have a major opponent in next August's Democratic primary, but already has a Republican challenger in the general election just over a year away: Dr. Jesse Cannon, a Covington physician and businessman.

Naifeh's House District 81 includes most of Tipton County and all of Haywood County. Although he is usually a GOP electoral target, efforts to unseat him heightened after he emerged two years ago as a leading advocate of tax reform centered around a state income. But he defeated Republican challenger Antonio Lopez, a retired Air Force officer, last November with 52.8 percent of the vote.

No mention of the gerry-mandering Naifeh engineered to make sure his increasingly Republican Tipton County was supplemented by the still Democratic Haywood County so that he could keep his seat. Without Haywood, Naifeh would have lost; election results proved it. Nor is credit given to Lopez, who entered the race at literally the last minute and ran a write in campaign against the State's most powerful and feared legislator. Cannon emerged later as a "standard" candidate and has been constantly and carefully building a network for his run. It should prove interesting and you can bet I'll be covering it.